clare smith – in the making

time spent in the studio is slow time: I draw as a way of slowing down; the act of drawing is a curb on the urge to “do something” and repetition and process take away the anxiety of not knowing what to draw. the formal ready-made grid restricts the ‘gestural’ by demanding slow, deliberate marks, though my hand wobbles and the mark cannot be fully controlled. despite the impersonality implicit in serial work, the personal cannot help but make its mark - a kind of insistence – “the self rushing up to the surface”.
 
clare started out as a linguist and graduated from cambridge university with a first-class degree in oriental studies in 1982. after living and working in luxembourg for 15 years, she returned to the uk to study art and realise a long-held ambition of making a life in the arts. She received her BA (hons) fine art in 2004 from the university for the creative arts in canterbury and has an MA in fine art practice from central st martins. her work is concerned with memory, authenticity and the nature of experience, as well as with the emotional connections that are created in the act of making.
"...to make something is tremendously powerful in and of itself. Even before we get to the point where we judge its value, the fact that someone has gone to all the trouble to make something is very moving." (Scully)
 
clare says: "From 14 November to 25 November, the gallery will be my studio. Like the art room of my childhood, the studio is a safe place to be, a place where I can be open to the possibility of intimacy"
space says: come, take a look....